It’s a Sunday night and I’ve had an incredibly horrible day {due to my own fault}. My fiancé had sent me this link to Love, Teach. I laughed all too hard {this teacher is AMAZING by the way, tells it like it is, thank goodness she’s anonymous…}. I felt like after my day & what I put my poor fiancé through, I should add to her list…so here’s my version:

1. Sunday Night Blues

Every Sunday, about half way through the day, no matter what you are doing, her mood will change drastically. Just right smack in the middle of something, she’ll get depressed or angry and never express why. We call this the “Sunday Night Blues”. It’s the dreaded day before you start again with your 32 rambunctious beings who can’t stop coughing and tattling on each other and then there’s that one who still hasn’t figured out your name and it’s December {TEACHER!}.

2. Teacher Radar

She can sense another teacher from a mile away. She will leave you dead in your tracks to talk to another teacher for an hour swapping horror stories, common core speak, and exchanging of ideas. Hope you enjoy standing around pretending to listen…

3. Teacher Talk

She’ll bore you for hours about how she analyzed her data and her kids have learned nothing {WHY?! I did everything right!!} She will talk about the latest gossip between Mrs. Know-It-All and Ms. Sensitive who won’t speak to her right now because she took all the copy paper. She won’t stop talking about how little Johnny finally passed his multiplication times two. And “why can’t I just have a day without a child throwing a book across the room??”

4. Future Children

You’ve always dreamed about having kids of your own someday. Maybe a little princess and a Jimmy Jr. Someone to twirl around and someone to play a little catch with in the backyard. Take that dream and flush it down the toilet. With a teacher as your significant other, you will be reduced to hoping for a friend who will name you God Parents, because kids ain’t gonna happen. You’ll shortly come to find out that with the 32 kids she spends most of her time with {3 with IEPs, 10 with ADD or ADHD, 2 with anger management issues, 1 off his meds, 1 that doesn’t read above a kindergarten level and you teach 5th grade, 5 parents who act like children, and 4 perfect angels-wait there’s your hope…}, 15 of which call her “mom” non-stop all day, she will be mothered out. The discussion of kids will always be answer with, “I already have 32 and that’s 32 too many”.

{side note: mad props to teacher-mamas, I don’t know how you do it}

5. Over Planning

You thought you could have a peaceful night of relaxing on the couch and maybe watching a movie. Think again. She’ll grab her computer and start making some elaborate unit to sell on TpT or to get her kids to learn how to write a paragraph. You’ll hear things like “I’m almost done”, “I just need to finish this…”, “I’m making you money”, or “I can’t just sit here and do nothing”. Teacher planning is never done and it will encroach on your time. If she busts out the laminator, you better run…

6. Helpers

If you date a teacher, you automatically become a “helper”. Your table will be cluttered with activities, games, lesson plans, and papers to grade. No longer will you be eating dinner looking longingly into one another’s eyes. If you are in the vicinity, you will be pulled in to grade something or cut something. You’d better arm yourself with a pen at all times {and please…no red, that just makes the kids feel bad}.

7. MoneyThey say when you start dating someone you usually gain a few pounds and all your money goes to nights out. Well, you’ll gain the pounds & your money will disappear, but not on anything for you. Your lovely teacher significant other will spend money on tons of teacher supplies. No one will buy her students glue sticks, so she will go out and get them herself. Then she will see some cute prizes for the prize box, a new book that teaches a wonderful skill, or an amazing product on TpT. Say goodbye to eating out, that money’s gone to the school. Now your stuck eating not-so-lean pockets {there’s your extra weight}. Oh, let’s not get started on Amazon books for her “personal professional growth”…

8. Fridays

From experience I can tell you, dating a teacher is the worst on a Friday night. She will be so excited to see you all day long and then when you pick her up she will start complaining about how tired and hungry she is. Thinking food will satisfy her is just wishful thinking. She’ll eat her food, refuse to talk about her “unbelievable” week of horror, and fall asleep on your couch at 8pm. When she wakes up, she’ll be mad that you let her sleep and waste your precious evening together. It’s a lose-lose.

9. Mr. & Mrs.

Mr. & Mrs. aren’t the old neighbors across the street you grew up with. In the business world you can call your boss “John” or your colleague “Susanne”. School’s a whole ‘nother story. When dating a teacher, you will never know the first names of the people she works with, so get used to calling them “Mr.”, “Miss”, “Ms.”, or “Mrs.” If you don’t she’ll correct you by saying, “Oh you mean MR. JONES right?” So don’t expect her to memorize one single first name. Unless it has at least two apostrophes in it {Mar’que’son?}.

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I obviously have my own case of the Sunday Night Blues, goodbye Thanksgiving, hello crazy world until Christmas!

All of this to say…I love being a teacher {and I only write these things from true, over-exaggerated, experiences}. Dating one comes with it’s funny challenges, but teachers are amazing, dedicated, and passionate about what they do. Any man/woman would be lucky to have one